Embrace the Night
by bella0513
Summary: AU: They were two people longing for fulfillment, braving the danger of a love like no other. Alone, they faced desolation and despair...together, they would share undying passion, defy eternity, and embrace the night. Please R
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_Salamanca, 1995_

The single headstone stood on a small rise, the luminous white marble glowing like a beacon in the gathering darkness. A thick gray mist rose up from the ground to meet the lowering clouds, but he needed no light to find his way to the grave site, or to read in the inscription on the stone.

Isabella Marie Swan

1865 - 1940

Beloved Wife

Gone From This Earth

Yet She Abides Forever

In My Heart

Bella. They had shared more than fifty years together. Had there been fifty more, a hundred more, it would not have been enough. She had filled the emptiness in his life, brightened the darkness that dwelled in the abyss of his accursed soul.

He groaned softly, experiencing the pain of her death anew.

"Why, Bella?"

The question torn from the depths of his heart, echoed in the stillness.

_Why, why, why..._

He cursed himself for letting her go, and yet, loving her as he did, he'd had no other choice.

"Bella, beloved, come back to me."

The pain of their separation pierced him anew, as sharp as it had been the night she died in his arms.

His hand caressed the cold marble headstone, then came to rest on the earth that covered her remains. But the woman he had loved more than his own life was gone. Her soul, her essence, had departed the earth, bound for that heaven that was forever denied him.

Bella.

The other half of his heart.

His solace in a dark and lonely world.

_Bella, Bella, why did you leave me? Was my existence so repugnant you could not share it?_

He groaned, deep in his soul, knowing he was being unfair. From the beginning, she had accepted him for what he was. Loved him with every fiber of her being, with every beat of her heart. Whatever anguish he was suffering now was not because of Bella's decision, but because of who, and what he was.

Pressing his cheek to the damp grass, he closed his eyes, remembering how it all began...

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**A/N: Anyone want more??? You know what to do...R & R Thanks )**


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hope you guys are enjoying. Please R&R. **

**Disclamier: I own nothing.

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Chapter 1

_England, 1881_

He had been observing her for the last 13 years, watching, from the shadows, as the cumberstone braces on her slender legs were changed again and again. A weakness in the lower limbs, the doctors said. That was what kept her from walking.

He had seen the hope fade from her wide blue eyes as she accepted the fact that she would never run and play like the other girls who lived in the orphanage. Later, as she grew older, he had felt her despair as she realized that she would probably never marry or have children, that she would likely live out her days alone, with no one to love her, no family to mourn her, or remember her when she was gone.

He was the only one who sensed the true depths of her despair, her heartache, the only one who knew how she yearned to run in the golden light of the sun, to walk in the silver shadow of the moon.

He was the only one who heard the sound of her muffled tears in the dark of the night. For others, she put on a brave face, but alone in her room, she wept bitter tears...tears that ate at his soul like acid.

He had never intended for her to know of his existence. Never. He had wanted only to watch over her, an unseen phantom who shared her loneliness and, in doing so, eased his own.

So it was that he was lingering in the shadows outside her room late one summer night.

He knew she had apent the afternoon sitting in the park across from the orphanage, watching the younger children at play, watching the couples old and young stroll hand in hand along the tree-lined path.

Watching life pass her by.

She had skipped dinner and gone to bed early that evening, only to lie awake long after everyone else in the house was asleep. A single candle burned at her bedside, its flickering light casting pale shadows over her face.

Now, hovering in the shadows on the veranda, he felt his heart ache. She was talking to herself, hervoice low and soft, but not so low he could not hear it.

"You can do it, Bella," she said, her voice tinged with determination. "I know you can, the doctors could be worng!"

For the next five minutes, he watched her struggle to inch her way to the edge of the bed, watched as she pulled herself to a sitting position, scooting over to the edge of the bed until her legs dangled over the side, her feet touching the floor.

"You can do it." Taking a deep breath, she clutched the newel post at the head of the bed and pulled herself to her feet.

For a brief moment, she stood there, her brow sheened with perspiration, and then bravely, she let go of the post.

He bit off a curse as her legs gave a way and she dropped to the floor.

"It's hopeless," she murmured, her voice thick with despair. "No one's ever going to adopt me." She dashed the tears from her eyes. "Or love me. I'll spend the rest of my life in this place and never do any of the things other girls do. I'll never marry. Or have children..."

She sat there for several minutes, staring at the floor, her shoulders slumped in resignation.

It grieved him to see her steeped in such anguish.

She had always tried so hard to be cheerful, to be brave. She was a beautiful young girl, on the verge of womanhood. Who could blame her for feeling that life was passing her by?

He longed to go to her, to take her in his arms and give her the comfort, the reassurance, she so desperately needed, but he dared not reveal himself.

He was about to turn away when ahe reached under her pillow and withdrew a small brown bottle. She stared at the bottle for a long moment, a pensive expression on her face.

And he knew, in that moment, that she intended to end her life.

Without thinking of the consequences, he barged into the room.

Bella glanced up, startled, as a tall man swept into her bedchamber. He was dressed all in black, from his soft leather boots to the heavy woolen cloak that swirled around him like a dark cloud.

"Bella, don't!"

His voice was like ebony satin, soft, mesmerizing.

Bella clutched the bottle to her breast. "Don't what?"

"Don't take your life, Bella."

She blinked up at him, too surprised by his unexpected intrusion in her room, and by his knowledge of what she intended to do, to be alarmed. "Who are you?"

"No one of importance."

"What were you doing out on the veranda?"

"Watching you."

_That _frightened her. He saw it in the way she shrank back against the pillows, in the sudden widening of her eyes as she realized that she was alone, and helpless.

"Watching me? Why?"

"I have watched over you since you were a child."

She smiled then, a faint expression of amusement and disbelief. "Are you my guardian angel?"

"Exactly."

"And is your name Edward?"

_(A/N: I know Edward really isn't an angel's name but work with me here, lol)_

He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. "If you wish."

She glanced at the bottle in her hand. "And have you come to take me to heaven?"

"No," he said sadly. "That I could never do."

"To hell then?"

He shook his head. His sweet Bella would never see hell, he mused, unless she looked into the depths of his eyes.

On silent feet, he closed the distance between them, and took the bottle from her hand.

Too late, she tried to snatch it back.

"No, Bella," he said, shoving the bottle into the pocket of his trousers. "I'll not let you take your own life. Now now. Not ever."

"I have no life," she retorted bitterly. "I've never been anything but a burden, first to my family, and now to the sisters who must take care of me."

"That's not true."

"It is! Don't you think i know it is? Why else would my mother have abandoned me?"

"Bella." He whispered her name, stricken by the depths of the pain in her eyes.

"I'm nothing but a burden," she said again. "The sisters say they love me, but I know they'd be relieved if I was gone."

"Ah, my poor sweet Bella," he murmured, and before he quite realized what he was doing, he was sitting in the edge of the bed, drawing her into his arms.

How lovely she was, with her silky blond hair and eyes as blue as a robin's egg. Sweet Bella. So lovely. So fragile.

He held her close, surprised that she didn't pull away. Instead, she burrowed into his arms, her face pressed to his chest. He felt her shoulders shake, felt her tears soaking through his shirt, the moisture warm and damp upon the coolness of his skin.

He held her, rocking her gently, until she fell asleep. And even then he was reluctant to let her go.

He cradled her to his chest until the first faint hint of dawn brightened the sky. Only then did he lower her to the bed. He gazed down at her for a long moment, and then he drew the quilt over her.

Knowing he had no right, he bent down and kissed her cheek, and then he was gone, as silent as the sunrise.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

He reached his lair in Crosswick Abbey minutes before the sun climbed above the horizon. Bolting the door behind him. he rested the back of his head against the solid wood, his skin still tingling from the promise of the sun's warmth.

Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what it had been like to walk in the light of day, to welcome the touch of the sun on his face, to bask in its warmth.

With a muttered oath, he pushed away from the door and crossed the floor. Sinking down in the huge, thronelike chair that was the room's only piece of furniture, he stared into the blackness of the hearth.

She was in pain, and she wanted to end her life. There were all kinds of pain, he thought. Bella's wasn't physical...it went much deeper than that, piercing her heart, her soul. Sweet and sensitive, she felt was a burden to the handful of nuns who ran the Sisters of Eternal Mercy Orphanage.

His heart ached for her. She had been born to wealthy parents, but from the day of her birth, the Swan family had been plagued by a constant stream of bad luck. Two ships belonging to the fleet owned by her father were lost at sea and a fire destroyed a part of their home. In the following year, Renee Swan gave birth to a stillborn son. Shortly after Bella's 3rd birthday, her father was killed in a carriage accident. Only then did his wife learn that he had gambled away not only their fortune, but the shipping line as well. His creditors, previously kept at bay by his good name and his fervent promises to make good on his many outstanding notes, had foreclosed on the family estate. Bella's mother, stricken by her husband's death and th eloss of her home, had abandoned her daughter, never to be seen again.

It was no wonder Bella was bitter, he mused. Perhaps he should have told her that she was the single ray of sunshine in his own miserable existence, that her life had purpose, even if it was only to bring light into one man's world of darkness.

But he couldn't tell her that. Much as he longed to give her comfort, he couldn't give her hope when he had none to give.

He felt the sun rising, felt the faint lethargy that came with the dawn, a lassitude that grew ever stronger until it rendered him powerless. When he'd first been made, centuries ago, he had been unable to withstand the overpowering weakness that had come with daylight. Drained of his strength, he had been forced to seek total darkness during the daylight hours, to sleep the restorative sleep of the undead. But as he got older, and stronger, he found that he was able to take his rest later in the day, to rise earlier at night, though the touch of the sunlight stil meant death. He feared the touch of the sun, the agony of a fiery death, as he feared nothing else.

Those early days had been filled with confusion and frustration. The lust for blood had filled him with self-loathing, yet he had ben unable to resist the urge to drink, and drink, and drink, until he was sated with it. His hearing, sharpened to a new awareness, was bombarded with noise. The sound of thunder was deafening. Only with the long practice did he learn to shut out the thoughts of others, to regain a sense of inner quiet. His eyesight was nothing short of miraculous...his strength was that of 20 men. Like a child with a new toy, he had tested the limits of his powers, his endurance. And in the testing, he had heedlessly brought pain and death to those helpless mortals who had unwittingly crossed his path.

Filled with loneliness, cut off from mankind, he had left Italy and wandered through the world, searching for a safe haven, a new place to call home. Gradually, he had learned to control the blood lust. He had learned it wasn't necessary to drain his prey, or to take so much that life was lost. He had learned to hypnotize a victim to his side, take only enough to appease his need, and leave, with the victim never realizing what had been done. And still there were times when the urge to feed was overwhelming, when even his considerable willpower wasn't enough to keep him from taking a life.

It was not an easy burden to bear, knowing he must exist on the life's blood of others or perish, knowing he was hated and feared by all mankind. Some accepted the Dark Gift and reveled in it, as he had. Others went mad.

He slumped down in the chair, shrouded in darkness and in his own bleak thoughts. For centuries he had prowled the earth, inflicting havoc on humanity, exculting in his immortality, content to wander aimlessly, caring for no one, letting no one care for him, until the loneliness became more than he could bear. He had accepted what he was by then, had learned to control the lust for blood, and so he sought a mate, searched the world from end to end looking for that one woman who would see past the monster he had become to the man he had once been.

He'd had no trouble finding woman. He needed no mirror to remind him that he was a virile male in his prime. His hair was short and straight, as black as his soul...his eyes were as gray as the morning mist that rose from the river. His face was pleasant enough, his lips full and sensuous...his nose, while slightly crooked, was not offensive.

He swore a vile oath at the memory. He had loved Rosalie with all the passion of youth, and she had died because of him. There had been times since then when he had grown heartily sick of the monster he'd become, times when death had beckoned sweetly.

13 years ago had been suck a time. He had been on the brink of destroying himself, of walking out into the sunlight to feel the sun on his face before it destroyed him. That had been the night he had seen Bella for the first time, a small, golden-haired girl huddled in the corner of an empty room.

She had been crying softly, as if she were afraid of disturbing the quiet of the night, and the sound, so filled with sorrow, had drawn him out of his own misery. The sound of her tears had led him to an elegant manor house.

She had stopped crying the instant he picked her up, staring at him through bright blue eyes filled with tears. And then she had smiled at him, a sweet, innocent smile filled with trust, and he had vowed to protect her for as long as she lived.

He had searched the rooms, looking for the child's mother, but there was no sign that anyone lived in the house. The furniture was covered...the closets were empty.

He had crused softly, wondering who would abandon such a precious child.

He had learned later that Bella was the child of Renee Swan, and the woman had fled her home in the middle of the night. The townspeople had assumed she had taken the child with her.

Late that night, he had taken Bella to the orphanage run by the Sisters of Eternal Mercy.

When he handed hre to the nuns, she had stared up at him, her little face looking sad, as if she realized she would never see him again.

He had watched over her ever since...

A long, slow sigh escaped his lips as he stared into the blackened hearth. Bella. What would he do if she tried to take her life while he slept? What would his life be like without her?

_Have you come to take me to heaven? _The sound of her voice echoed in his mind, as did his own cryptic reply: _That I could never do. _Truer words had never been spoken, he thought, for he was far beyond the reach of heaven.

_And is your name Edward? _she had asked him, to which he had replied, _if you wish._

A faint smile curved the corner of his mouth. He had lived many lives and worn many names, but none pleased him more than the one she had given him.

For this lifetime, her lifetime, he would by Edward.

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**A/N: Only 3 reviews so far! Let me know if i should go on... Please R&R**


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

With a sigh, Jude closed the book she had been reading. Another happily-ever-after ending, she thought despondently. If only real life, her life, would end like that. If only there were a Prince Charming waiting in her future, eager to carry her off on his prancing white charger...a tall handsome man who could look past the wheelchair and see the woman.

She stared at the closed veranda doors, remembering the mysterious man who had come to her in the dark of the night. A faint smile curved her lips. All day, she had thought of him, her imagination creating one fantasy after another.

He was a prince in disguise looking for his own Cinderella.

He was an eccentric nobleman searching for the perfect mate, and she was it.

He was a depraved monster from a childhood dream, and only she could asve him...

A small sound of disgust erupted from her throat. No man, whether prince or monster, would ever want a woman bound to a chair. What prince would want a princess who couldn't walk? What monster could be reformed by half a woman?

Tears stung her eyes and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. Lately, all she wanted to do was cry, to wallow in self-pity. She was tired of it, ashamed of it, but she couldn't seem to stop. She was almost 17 years old. She wanted to run through a sunlit meadow, walk along tree-lined paths, swim in the pretty blue lake

behind the orphanage. And more than anything, she wanted to dance.

She glanced at the beautiful little ballerina music box beside her bed. Her one dream, ever since she'd been a little girl, had been to be a dancer. It was a hope she had held close to her heart through all the years of her childhood, a hope that had grown fainter each time the doctor had changed the braces on her legs, until, in the end, they had removed the braces altogether. Any hope she had ever had for a normal future had died that day, killed by the cold, implacable realizatoin that she would never walk. She would spend her whole life in a wheelchair.

She wouldn't cry! She wouldn't!

Jude choked back a sob as the door swung open and Sister Georgia came in to see her night time needs before tuckingher into bed.

"Sleep well, child," Sister Georgia said.

After making sure the bell pull was in place in case Jude needed something during the night, the nun left the room.

Jude lay in her bed, wide awake, as silence fell over the household. She was drawing the covers up to her chin when she saw a shadow move across the gauzy curtains that covered the veranda doors.

"Thomas?" She peered into the darkness. "Tommy?" She called his name again, the cry echoing in the lonely corridors of her heart. "If you're there, please come in."

She held her breath, waiting, hoping, and then the doors swung open, revealing a dark figure silhouetted by the moonlight.

"Tommy."

"Jude." He inclined his head in her direction as he stepped into the room and closed the doors behind him. "You're up late."

"I'm not tired."

"You've been crying," he remarked, his voice ringed with accusation and regret.

She shook her heard. "No, I haven't."

She pulled herself into a sitting position, then lit the lamp beside the bed. "Have you been watching me again?"

Tommy nodded. He had stood in the shadows, watching her read, watching the play of emotions on her face. It had been so easy to divine her thoughts as the story unfolded, to know that she had imagined herself as the heroine, that she yearned for the perfect fairy-tale kind of love and fulfillment that existed only in books.

"I've seen you before, haven't I?" she mused. "Before last night, i mean?" She studied his face, the deep gray eyes, the sharp planes and angles, the strong jaw. "I remember you."

Tommy shook his head. She couldn't remember him. It was impossible.

"You're the one who brought me to the orphanage."

"How can you possibly remember that? You were only a child."

"So it was you!" She smiled triumphantly. "How could I ever forget the face of my guardian angel?"

A muscle worked in Tommy's jaw as guilt and self-loathing rose up within him. He was an angel, all right, he thought bitterly, the angel of death.

"And you've been watching over me since? Why?"

Why, indeed? he thought. He couldn't tell her she represented everything he had lost, that her innocence drew him like a light in the darkness, that he had watched her grow from a beautiful child into a beautiful woman, and that his lust had grown with her. No, never that! He shoved his hands int ohis pockets and curled them into tight fists. She must never know that.

"Why?" He forced a smile. "Curiousity, of course."

"I see," Jude said dryly. "Since you saved my life, you wanted to see how I turned out?"

"You could put it that way."

"And how have I turned out?"

"Beautifully," he murmured.

"Beautiful but useless."

"Jude!" He was at her side in a heartbeat. "Never say that. Never feel that."

"Why not? It's true. I'm no good to anyone."

"You are. You are good for me."

"Really?" she asked skeptically. "How?"

How, he thought. How could he explain what she meant to him?

"You can't think of anything, can you?"

"I have no family," Tommy said quietly. "No close friends. After I found you, you became my family. Sometimes I pretended that you were my daughter..."

"And you left me gifts, didn't you?" Jude glanced at the ballerina on her bedside table. "You brought me presents on my birthday, and at Christmas."

Tommy nodded.

"I always wondered why there were no cards with the gifts." She smiled up at him. "I've loved all your presents, especially the music box."

"I'm glad they pleased you, _cara_," he said, rising smoothly to his feet. "And now I must go." (A/N: FYI - _Cara Mia _means _my dear _in italian.)

"Oh." She looked away, but not before he saw the disappointment in her eyes.

"Do you wish for me to stay?"

"Yes, please."

With a sigh, he drew a chair up beside her bed and sat down. "Shall I read to you?" he aked, glancing at the book she'd been reading.

"No, I finished it. But you could tell me a story."

"I'm not much of a story teller," he remarked and then, seeing the disappointment in her eyes, he acquiesced with a slight nod.

"Many years ago, in a distant country, there was a young man. He came from a very large family. A very poor family. He was 16 when a mysterious illness spread through their village. He watched his whole family die, one by one, and when they were all gone, he laid them side by side in their cottage and then set it on fire.

For many years, he traveled the land, and then, when he was 29, he met a woman, and for the first time in life, he fell in love, so much in love that he never questioned who she was, or why she would see him only at night.

And then one day he contracted a fever, and he knew he was going to die the same horrible death that had claimed his family. Though he was loath to admit it, even to himself, he was terribly afraid to die.

The woman he loved came to him when he was on the very brink of death. Weeping from pain and fear, he begged her to save him."

" 'I can do it,' she said. 'I can do as you wish, but the price will be dear.' "

" 'Anything,' he said.' "

" ' And if the price is your soul, will you still pay it?' "

"Foolish man that he was, he agreed. And the woman, whom he thought was an angel, carried him away in a dance of darkness. And when he awoke again, he realized he'd struck a bargain, not with an angel, but with the devil. And though he would now live forever, he would never live at all."

"I don't understand," Jude said frowning. "What was the man? Who was the woman? How could he live forever, but not live at all?"

"It's only an old fairy tale, Jude," Tommy replied. He glanced out the window, the stood up. "This time I really must go," he said. "Rest well, _cara mia_."

"Thank you for the story."

"You are most welcome," he replied softly, and bending, he pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.

"Good night."

"Will you come back tomorrow night?"

"If you wish."

"I do."

"Until tomorrow, then."

"Until tomorrow," she called as he moved through the doorway. "Sweet dreams."

A muscle twitched in Tommy's jaw as he vaulted over the railing that enclosed the veranda. Sweet dreams, indeed, he mused bitterly.

And landing lightly on the damp ground, he disappeared into the darkness, as silent as the rising sun.


End file.
